Falls – Gefrees railway line
| Falls – Gefrees | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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 The Ölschnitztal Viaduct near Gefrees
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| Route number : | 5005 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Course book section (DB) : | 817 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Route length: | 5.3 km | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Gauge : | 1435 mm ( standard gauge ) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Maximum slope : | 23.3 ‰ | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Minimum radius : | 200 m | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Top speed: | 50 km / h | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The Falls – Gefrees railway line was a branch line in Bavaria . It is one of the former branch lines into the Fichtelgebirge and was located in what is now the municipality of the city of Gefrees .
history
During the construction of the Ludwig-Süd-Nord-Bahn in 1848, a route over Falls and Gefrees came into focus. Gefrees and Marktschorgast would have had a joint station at today's Marktschorgast motorway exit. When the Neuenmarkt-Wirsberg-Hof section of the Ludwigsbahn opened on November 1, 1848, Gefrees was not taken into account, but the station in Falls was inaugurated 16 years later. In 1873 it was renamed "Falls-Gefrees". In 1875 and again in 1889 the loading hall was expanded due to the increasing volume of traffic on the route. The Gefreeser had a connection to the railway network, but the way to the station could only be covered by carriages; consequently a separate stop was soon required. Various petitions fizzled out by the 20th century and it was not until 1900 that Prince Regent Luitpold approved the construction of the Falls – Gefrees line . Each kilometer of the local railway cost around 90,000 marks. After the measurement of the railway line and the land for the apartments of the officials had started on March 20, 1901, the first groundbreaking took place on April 1 of the same year. After a construction period of almost nine months, the first train from Falls to Gefrees was able to run on February 28, 1902. The railway committee bought the workers a lunch on this occasion. On May 1, 1902, the station in Falls received its final name "Falls". One month later, the first freight trains were running and on July 5 the line was officially opened.
In June 1903, a pulsometer was installed in Falls in order to better supply the locomotives with fresh water. A second system of this type was built in the Gefreeser Lokremise . With the exception of a few failures in the winters of 1929, 1941 and 1942, no particular incidents are known to have occurred during the operating time of the railway.
From 1955 the star of the "winged wheel" began to decline in Gefrees and the surrounding area. The closure of the branch of the depot in Gefrees was a first step towards the closure. Four years later, the Gasthaus zur Eisenbahn in Falls, which had served as an excursion restaurant and lounge for the railway workers from the start, closed. With the closure of the Münchberg – Zell railway line in 1971, there were fears that operations in Gefrees would also be discontinued. On September 30, 1973, passenger traffic was actually stopped. At the same time, the demolition of the locomotive depot in Gefrees and the station building in Streitau began . The Gefreeser track in Falls was also dismantled.
But it was not until 20 years later that the local railway finally came to an end: Since freight trains were also running less and less, the route was no longer profitable and so the decision was made to cease all operations. This was approved by the Federal Transport Office on December 31, 1993. During the Whitsun Steam Days in Neuenmarkt , passenger journeys took place for the last time on the route before the last train left Gefrees station on September 12, 1993. After the last freight wagon had been picked up in Gefrees in January 1994, track dismantling began in spring. In the following years the traces of the former local railway disappeared more and more . In Falls, too, freight traffic was stopped in 1998 and the demolition permit for the freight hall was granted four years later.
In April 2003, the general cargo warehouse was relocated from the train station in Gefrees to the loading area of the Raiffeisenbank. This shed, the now privately used station building in Falls and the Ölschnitztal Viaduct are the only remnants of the Falls-Gefrees local railway.
Route description
course
The route was 5.3 kilometers long and overcame height differences of 80 meters in total. On the northern edge of the Fichtelgebirge, the local railway branched off from the Ludwig-Süd-Nord-Bahn in a northeastern direction at the Falls station at 548 meters . This connected the local railway with Hof and across the famous Schiefe Ebene with Neuenmarkt ; the next train stations were Marktschorgast in the direction of Neuenmarkt and Stammbach in the direction of Hof.
After a two-kilometer winding downhill gradient, the route passed under the A 9 at kilometer 2.3 . The underpass was at the northern end of today's Streitau motorway parking lot . Immediately after the autobahn at km 2.5 was the Streitau station at an altitude of 506 meters . This was followed by another 1.5 kilometer long downward slope into the Ölschnitztal valley at 482 meters, where the Ölschnitz, a tributary of the White Main , was crossed on a short stone viaduct at 4.2 kilometers. After climbing almost 1000 meters, the local railway reached its end point at Gefrees at 5.3 km at an altitude of 500 meters above sea level . There were several freight loading tracks, a locomotive shed and private sidings.
A further construction of the local railway to Weißenstadt and a connection with the Kirchenlamitz – Weißenstadt railway line was planned, but was not realized.
Operating points
- Falls train station
Even before the construction of the railway line, the Falls station was only important for the city of Gefrees, there was no significant need for transport in Falls.
The station building there is the oldest on the Falls – Gefrees line. It was probably created from originally two individual structures. This division of the station into two parts is no longer visible from the track side since the facade was renovated, but the two buildings can still be seen from the street side.
In addition to the actual station building, an outbuilding, which now serves as a garage, and two station guards' houses have been preserved. The iron pedestrian bridge, the signal box, the goods shed with grain silo and the barrier system that was once operated by hand have disappeared. The demand stop in Fall, which was set up after the local railway was closed, also no longer exists.
- Streitau ceiling station
In the years 1934 to 1936, the section from Schleiz to Bad Berneck of today's Federal Motorway 9 was built. A ceiling station was built on the Falls – Gefrees railway line immediately to the west of its intersection with the motorway route . At km 2.4, the siding branched off north of the main line in the direction of Falls. Two loading tracks were reached via a double crossing switch. The southern track had a wagon tipping system, where open freight wagons could be unloaded into a bunker via the front wall and the delivered material could be distributed to silos via conveyor belts. Cement was delivered via the northern track, presumably in sacks in closed freight cars.
- Streitau stop
In Streitau there was a station building with an attached goods shed , a detached toilet house and a warehouse for agricultural products. The station building was demolished in the 1970s. The structure resembled the former train station in Weißdorf , which, like the Sparneck station on the Münchberg – Zell railway line , was built according to the same plans.
The station is also a private owned siding , which was closed down but before the cessation.
- Gefrees train station
All traces of the railway have disappeared in Gefrees. With the demolition of the station building, whose construction with that of the same time in Zell im Fichtelgebirge agreed built station, 2003, the chapter was Bahn finalized. The former locomotive shed, which was also similar to the one in nearby Zell, disappeared around 1973. The coaling plant, the toilet house and the goods shed no longer exist either. Only the former general cargo warehouse has been preserved on the Raiffeisenbank site.
Locomotive use
The first locomotive to be used on the route as scheduled belonged to the D XI series . As early as 1907 there were first plans to switch operations to motor trains . Presumably until 1930, locomotives of the ML 2/2 and PtL 2/2 ("glass box") series ran regularly on the line. From 1935 the class 98.4-5 was in use, which always drove from Falls to Gefrees by tender . The reason for this was that locomotives should always drive with the chimney in the direction of the slope. Since the Gefrees terminus was lower than the Falls station, this unusual situation arose.
The 98.11 series was also used in the 1950s . In 1955, the route was the first in the Upper Franconian region to be served only by diesel locomotives. The first was a model from the V 20 series . The locomotive was initially refueled with a hand-wing pump, and the fuel required came from iron barrels stored in the locomotive shed. Class 98, 64 and Köf III locomotives jumped in during the maintenance work . Between 1955 and 1956, a V 36 was used alongside the V 20 . The last locomotive types from 1965 onwards were the V 60 , a V 45 (V 45 005) and a rail bus VT 95 , which only ran on weekends , as no freight wagons were to be taken on those days. Due to the sharp drop in passenger numbers in the last few years of operation, a “ blunderbuss ” was usually sufficient for passenger transport. Since the diesel locomotives had no heating equipment, they had to be heated with a coal stove. Such a car still exists as a museum car.
literature
- Dennis Philipp, Martin Müller, Roland Fraas: Local line Falls - Gefrees: The small branch line with great variety. 2nd extended edition, published by MEC 01 Münchberger Eisenbahnfreunde eV , 2009.
Web links
- www.lokalbahn-reminiszenzen.de: Description of the local railway with further information and pictures (private) ( Memento from February 22, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
credentials
- ^ Dennis Philipp, Martin Müller: Local Railway Falls - Gefrees. (MEC Münchberg): p. 13.
- ↑ a b c d Dennis Philipp, Martin Müller: Local Railway Falls - Gefrees. (MEC Münchberg): p. 4.
- ^ A b Dennis Philipp, Martin Müller: Local Railway Falls - Gefrees. (MEC Münchberg): p. 5.
- ^ A b Dennis Philipp, Martin Müller: Local Railway Falls - Gefrees. (MEC Münchberg): p. 18.
- ^ Dennis Philipp, Roland Fraas, Martin Müller: Local Railway Falls-Gefrees. The small branch line with great variety . 2nd Edition. Eisenbahn-Fachbuch-Verlag, Neustadt bei Coburg 2009, p. 102 ff .
- ^ Dennis Philipp, Martin Müller: Local Railway Falls - Gefrees. (MEC Münchberg): p. 41.
- ^ Dennis Philipp, Martin Müller: Local Railway Falls - Gefrees. (MEC Münchberg): p. 42.
- ^ Secondary and narrow-gauge railways in Germany: Falls - Gefrees, GeraNova, 1995, p. 9
- ^ Dennis Philipp, Martin Müller: Local Railway Falls - Gefrees. (MEC Münchberg): p. 46.